The problem is that Proof-of-Work can waste an enormous amount of energy and both techniques result in a concentration of power (either by geography or by special interest) \u2014 rather than a fair, distributed consensus.<\/p>\n
In a quasi-formal paper, C.V. Alkan describes a fresh approach to Blockchain consensus. that he calls Distributed Objective Consensus<\/a>. As you try to absorb his mechanism, you encounter concepts of Sybil attacks, minting inequality, the \u201cnothing-at-stake\u201d While I have a concern that time stamps and parent-child schemes may degrade user anonymity, the complexity doesn\u2019t concern me. Alkan\u2019s paper is a technical proposal for magic under the covers. Properly implemented, a buyer and seller (and even a miner) needn\u2019t fully understand the science. The user interface to their wallet or financial statement would certainly be shielded from the underlying mechanics.<\/p>\n Put another way: You would not expect a user to understand the mechanism any more than an airline passenger understands the combustion process inside a jet engine. They only want to know:<\/p>\n \u2022 Does it work? \u2022 Is it safe? \u2022 Is it cost effective? \u2022 Will I get there on time?<\/em><\/p>\n So will Alkan\u2019s Decentralized Objective Consensus<\/em> solve the resource and concentration problems that creep into POW and POS? Perhaps. At first glance, his technical presentation<\/a> appears promising. I will return to explore the impact on privacy and anonymity, which is my personal hot button. It is a critical component for long term success of any coin transaction system built on distributed consensus. That is, forensic access and analysis of a wallet or transaction audit trail must be impossible without the consent and participation of at least one party to a transaction.<\/p>\n Philip Raymond co-chairs CRYPSA<\/a> and The Bitcoin Event<\/a>. He is a Lifeboat<\/a> board member, editor<\/sub> At the heart of Bitcoin or any Blockchain ledger is a distributed consensus mechanism. It\u2019s a lot like voting. A large and diverse deliberative community validates each, individual user transaction, ownership stake or vote. But a distributed consensus mechanism is only effective and faithful if the community is impartial. To be impartial, voters must be [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1318,1523,1761,39,1522,1412,1629],"tags":[2161,2121,2626,1884,2627,2630,2628,2618,2629,2575],"class_list":["post-34460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bitcoin","category-computing","category-cryptocurrencies","category-economics","category-innovation","category-privacy","category-software","tag-bitcoin","tag-blockchain","tag-c-v-alkin","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-distributed-consensus","tag-distributed-objective-consensus","tag-proof-of-stake","tag-proof-of-work","tag-sybil-attack","tag-transaction-validation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34460"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49197,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34460\/revisions\/49197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/distributed-objective-consensus-beyond-pow-pos.png\")
problem, punishment schemes and heartbeat transactions. Could Alkan\u2019s distributed consensus mechanism be too complex for the public to understand or use?\u2026<\/p>\n
\n
\nat AWildDuck<\/a> and will deliver the keynote address at Digital Currency Summit<\/a> in Johannesburg.<\/sup><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"